1. About Our AI Assistant “Ive”

Ive is the official AI assistant developed in-house by ASIACOM Group and operated by the Tokyo HQ (Japan Desk). It supports both external explanations about the Group and the daily work of our staff in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

Most of our team members spend a large part of their time away from their desks – visiting clients, checking warehouses, or travelling between locations. Because of this, Ive is designed from the beginning as a “smartphone-first” assistant: something that staff can use naturally on the move, with one hand on their phone.

In practical terms, Ive helps our staff in the following ways:

• Expense-related support from smartphones
  Staff can submit and organise expense-related information – such as receipts or invoices – directly from their mobile devices while they are out in the field. This reduces the need to keep paper slips on hand and lowers the amount of manual input required after returning to the office.
• Quick access to internal information
  Simple internal notes, working guidelines, and checklists can be confirmed on a smartphone without opening a PC or specialised system. This is especially useful when staff need to check something in a taxi, at the airport, or between meetings.
• Searching across group-wide knowledge
  Ive can search and summarise information that is spread across different Desks and pages, helping staff quickly find what they need without having to remember which site or document it came from.
• Explaining the overall ASIACOM Group structure
  When staff or external partners need a simple explanation of how the Tokyo HQ, Hong Kong Company, Taiwan Desk, and Philippine Desk are related, Ive can provide a short, consistent overview.
• Summarising official web content
  Ive can turn longer website explanations into short summaries that are easier to read on a smartphone screen.
• Light drafting and explanation support
  For internal work, Ive can help draft simple texts, summarise bullet points, or provide plain-language explanations of trade terminology and basic procedures.

Ive is not designed to replace human judgment or approvals. Instead, it focuses on reducing small, repetitive tasks so that our staff can concentrate on real trade work, relationship management, and decisions that require experience.

All responses are based on official ASIACOM information and internally managed knowledge. The system does not use advertising feeds or recommend external commercial services. Its role is simply to make it easier for a small, cross-border team to work in a consistent and organised way, mainly through the devices that our staff already carry every day – their smartphones.

2. Why We Develop and Operate AI In-House

All AI systems used by ASIACOM Group are designed, developed, and operated by the Tokyo HQ (Japan Desk). We do not depend on generic off-the-shelf AI tools or fully outsourced vendors. There are several reasons for this in-house approach:

• Desk-specific trade realities cannot be handled by generic AI alone
  Regulations, culture, and business practices differ across Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines. An AI that is not customized to these differences cannot support real-world trade operations in a reliable way.
• A small team still needs structure
  Our organisation is intentionally small, but we handle cross-border work and long-term relationships. To keep things consistent, routine work and standardisable tasks are delegated to AI, while human staff focus on judgment and coordination.
• Clear control from Japan
  By concentrating control and governance in Tokyo HQ, we can clearly show where the AI is operated and under which legal and corporate framework it is managed.

3. The Two Roles of Ive: External and Internal

Ive is designed with two main purposes: an external-facing information role and an internal efficiency role.

(1) External: Explanation and Information Support

Externally, Ive helps:

• Explain how the Group is structured and how each Desk relates to the others.
• Outline our basic approach to governance, risk management, and compliance.
• Clarify which Desk is responsible for which type of case or region.
• Provide additional context to the content already published on our websites.

(2) Internal: Operational Efficiency and Workload Reduction

Internally, Ive supports our staff by:

• Drafting and summarizing internal documents.
• Searching across past cases and internal rules.
• Assisting with expense-related paperwork and helping to organise and track invoices and delivery notes from business partners.
• Supporting the daily confirmation of trade-related terms, basic rules, and regulatory frameworks in each jurisdiction.
• Structuring cross-Desk knowledge so that staff can find relevant information quickly.

The core idea is that Ive absorbs as much routine work as possible, so that human staff can concentrate on the “craft” of real trade operations and client-facing decision-making.

4. AI Designed Backwards from Real Trade Operations

At ASIACOM, AI is not introduced for its own sake. Instead, our systems are designed “backwards” from the reality of day-to-day trade operations.

• We structure Ive’s answers based on actual case flows and issues experienced in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
• Internal logic is tuned so that it can absorb the different circumstances and requirements of each Desk while still functioning as a single group-wide system.
• The system is intentionally lightweight and practical, rather than a large, complex platform that requires dedicated maintenance teams.
• Unnecessary features that only increase operational burden are kept out, so that the system can be maintained by a small team.
• Priority is given to tasks that genuinely reduce the workload of people in the field, especially routine and repetitive tasks.

In short, the starting point and final goal of our AI design is very simple: to reduce the operational burden on people working in real trade, and to let them focus on what only humans can do.

5. ASIACOM Group’s AI Policy (Summary)

Our AI policy can be summarized in five points:

• Transparency
  Ive is limited to official ASIACOM web content and internal knowledge as its primary information sources.
• Safety
  For topics such as legal issues, taxation, prices, or contract terms that require case-by-case judgment, Ive only provides general explanations and always recommends final confirmation by human staff.
• Neutrality
  Ive does not rely on advertising or sponsored recommendations, and does not unfairly promote any specific third party.
• Centralized Governance
  All AI systems are governed and supervised by the Tokyo HQ (Japan Desk) under Japanese corporate and regulatory standards.
• Human Responsibility
  Final decisions and approvals are always made by human officers or staff. AI is a tool for structuring information and supporting explanations, not for replacing human responsibility.